Thursday, 23 September 2010

It's been a while, kid.

It's the 1000th post (sorta), and I've been planning on this for a while. It's not bad news, don't worry.

The site has come so far, and I don't think I need to explain why, but seeing such a great community develop over something I do for fun feels better than anything else in the world. And if you haven't noticed, we've been having trouble expanding even more. To put it harshly, we've hit a dead end. So here are some things I'd like to address.

I want change. ilictronix is incredible. Absolutely phenomenal. But to be honest, it's disturbingly regular. In my opinion, it's time for something different. Something that sets us apart. I'm thinking big picture here.

My original intentions for ilictronix were to spread the word of electronic music. I wanted to get artists known, and I wanted to get people to listen to some great music. We've exceeded all what I originally expected, and things are now going swimmingly.

I want to start a catalog for artists that showcase their talents. Something that you'll see at the bottom of every post mentioning them. A familiar box that shows a picture, some info, and some links. On top of that, an option to rate the artists, and even an option for admins to list them as "noteworthy."

I want this to be legit. I want the site to rely on the music of uncopyrighted music, or at to least have complete rights to post certain tracks. What we're doing is fine, giving well-deserved exposure. But if we wish to become a heavy-hitter in the blogosphere, we're going to have to get our shit together and branch out from this website.

So what does this mean for all of us? A total site reconstruction. Is it a lot of work? Shit yeah. If these plans go through, expect a lot of downtime. Maybe even stopping the site for a month or so.

We've hit a dead end, boys and girls. And now it's time to grab a sledgehammer and smash the shit out of the wall. Getting away from blogger, getting away from a feature-less website, and enriching the internet, one song at a time.

So who's with me? Please leave comments listing your opinions on this matter. I'm counting on you guys to measure my own sanity.

whatevs really, I mean, I'm out of touch with what's new so this could be good for me to get into my old routines again. so long as I get to keep doing what I do :D. have you spoken to brown about out ilictronix.fm idea? I mentioned it once and I'm not sure if it'd be worth it

oh and way to be constructive anon, try to suggest somethings next time eh? or is that asking too much of you?

I like the idea, but there are some issues with what you are proposing. Firstly, if we close down the blog and have a few months downtime while we create the new ilictronix, we run the risk of losing a lot of our fanbase. If this idea does go ahead, it may be worth while moving the blog to another domain (such as blog.ilictronix.com), keeping it running and then once the new site is complete running both the blog and the new site together to see if the new site has enough potential to take off. It would be a real shame if the new site were to fail and we had to recreate the blog.

Also, just out of curiosity, are you talking about getting rid of blogger completely and designing our own blogging site? Because coding the backend would be quite a challenge, though entirely do-able.

No matter what your decision is, I am 100% behind you Prez. I would also like to raise my hand and help you out designing the new site! Although my coding knowledge has it's limitiations, im more than happy to learn and input what I do know.

Okay, well this is interesting.I thought the place was going fine (as in could be better but could be worse too)

I would like to see sub-genre based blogs. With more activity from bloggers and more community communication. Electronic music is about close "families" sharing with each other. So this site needs to focus on that. A better way to quickly post a message about a blog. And be able to have user accounts. This would go nicely with the sub-genre I was talking about.

I bet all of you don't even know I have been around this site for around a year now. I have made only a few comments, and with this easy to change identity it means little to nothing as a community.

I want to see this site get "it right" and not F-up. Think this over and take my comment seriously.

Your absolutly right im tired of going thru so many sites just to find the same artist posts and songs. I love it when i can find a site where i can find new DJ and producer material that will make my dj sets apart from everyones elses. Also a site where i can submit my own orignal track and mixes where i will have a fair chance to get listened to and be criticed on how they sound with out feeling is it just going to be passed over since im not a big name on the scene. As well as a site or tab that would list all events from the massives to the small warehouse parties according to state or city location. I would all so like to see if ever possible events that would have listening for open set times to new Djs and performers, that would help get more talent noticed for their talent, there for eleminating all the bs politics that goes on in the clubs or big events. time to stop the "its who you know" and bring back the "its what you know and how you do it, let speak for its self. Thank you for lending an ear to my thoughts- DJ IDK keep up the great work!!!!

i've been visiting your site for almost every day since i discovered it half a year ago. it became my main source of electronic music and i think of it as an insider tip.

i'm afraid of what this site turns into, if it's getting too popular. will i still be able to download all those amazing tracks? in my opinion the download feature is the big advantage thinking of other music websites.

on the other hand i'm excited of what a new project could offer to the users.

we'll support you, I can send you my tracks if you're stuck at the beggining (I don't think you'll need it). and I will stay spreading the words on this site, don't matter how it looks or when will start your new stage.

I love this site and ill still visit it every day (sorry ive been on vacation)... here are my thoughts though, I fully support your redesign idea. Electronic music is changing drastically, and with that your site must too. What is "in" right now is changing from the dirty french house that was awesome years ago. I understand your need to change. I wouldnt just focus on the fringe electronic music though. Electronic music is broad and it seems that you only cover certain sub genres. (I love those sub-genres though) If your covering all electronic music wouldnt that include underground hiphop, industrial, and all the crazy shit in between? Just wondering, to me the broader you make it the more viewers you will have. As always I love this site and am excited to see where things will go!

Man it just hit me, electronic music really has changed in the last couple of years hasn't it?!

It didn't at all. And Adam, if we're going to cover all that other stuff you mentioned, we'd have to have writers who listened to it. As it is, our variety is only based on what we writers actually like, so you can't expect too much aside from that unless we sit there F5ing the Hypem mainpage. And then we just become another mainstream "OMG THIS IS NEW AND HOTTTT" blog.

Also, let's not take the blog down. That would be like closing every single Starbucks for a day so they can put in the new menu. Craziness. Let's keep it up, keep putting in new music, even if we have to go back to using the old blogspot domain for awhile.

I understand boba but the problem is this: the blogs who are omg hot new tracks here! are the ones that get most of the hits. Sure sharing tracks that we all love is awesome but how does that draw other people in? (im not critiquing im honestly asking.)

again I know you can't cover everything but again, its what brings people in. As I said before the dirtier tracks luckly have slowed down (i still love those) and it seems that dubstep is all the rage and the blogs that post it are getting zillions of hits.

I love the idea of original content though, any blog can post track after track but original content sets the blog apart. Have the dj's that visit this site create a special setlist for the month or week or whatever. Also Im enjoying how beefy the posts have been getting. The warped ones come to mind or the hot dubstep injection ones. If you post a track and then a sentence no user will stay on the site for too long, but if you have posts like that people stay and are more likely to read more. I would love to see opinion articles (meaning more reviews). Those are great because it makes it easier to stumble across the site via google.

I guess another point I'm trying to make is yeah we know about rusko and deamau5 and big name artists help your readers go deeper into the electronic rabbit hole. And we used to have fourms?! awe man I wish I were here for that, I've been here a while and I don't remember those!

Again I love this site and will continue to give you guys hits no matter what you guys do, because I love the writers here and the things you post.

I try to write a bit about each track just so the readers dont dive in blind, that and I love just writing about them. At any rate it's better than "OMG THIS TRAK IS GAZMIXX" and nothing else to back it up.

On topic: at this point Prez, I'm happy for you to do whatever you want, all the things you suggested sound fine, it just seems like a hell of a lot of work